The Nest

At this year’s Burning Man, I happened to visit “Flight” by Robert Bengtson, an artist, photographer and materials designer. This interactive display featured angels praying around a birdcage and a birdhouse in which Burners could sit down on comfortable pillows, and write messages onto white paper feathers while piped-in bird songs played around them. This was one of the most beautiful pieces of art I saw on the Playa. Mr. Bengtson creates consistently beautiful designs, including last year’s Memortrees. Even his business card design is as light and airy as a feather.

Simple. Clean. Fresh. That’s the design, photography and recipes of the Stone Soup blog on simple cooking and eating. Jules Clancy from Australia writes lovely little posts on recipes that use very few ingredients, and she offers free e-cookbooks. Perfect for late summer.

From Flickr Group: Motel & Hotel Signs

The Nada Dada Motel exhibit is in town again this year. I am especially looking forward to the works of Patty Melton. She will be celebrating the retro design of old hotels and hotel signs in the Reno area.

I have always loved the style of old motel signs. In Reno, several of the hotels have been closing up. I would love for there to be a certain part of the city or a street where these old signs can be refurbished and displayed. We could call it Motel Alley.

I am itchin’ to get a few t-shirts and tank tops from this small company who makes these sassy designs. Perfect for this western gal.

From Josh Mauldin (*via Twitter from CMD+Shift) I found this blog post for Photoshop users on creating your own random music album cover. Above is the debut of the band Rajshahi Collegiate School.

Powell’s Books

Japanese Garden at Washington Park

Rose at Washington Park

Chocolate-mint cupcake from New Seasons

Rosemary infused coffee at Pix Patisserie

For our annual Halloween party I created a black light bar and made drinks that glow in a black light. Tonic water glows well under a black light because of the quinine in it, so I made “Gin & Bubonic” and tonic water ice cubes. I also had “Dr. Rotten’s Ultimate Embalming Fluid” (Tampico blueberry juice and tonic water) and Toxic Waste (Mountain Dew). Our guests loved it…but were scared to walk past the haunt that hovered over the bar (me).

If I were to fall in love with a woman, it would be Misty Tosh. She is fierce, fun, feisty and gorgeous. The beautiful, colorful blog of her fascinating life and travels makes me want to sell everything and run off with her to Baja and enjoy margaritas and Coronas on the beach.

The lovely people at Fair Indigo sent me a Jiffy the Giraffe in thanks for my last post about their Joobles line of children’s clothes. Thank you so much, I love him!

Jiffy had an adventurous first day when I took him to work at the university. I found out he is quite the hipster-intellectual.

He was quite impressed with my large monitor, but he got bored with work quickly and I caught him making copies of his bum on the photocopier.

Later in the morning he shared a Starbucks with Heath and hung out in her lap, but she had to give him back to me when he commandeered her cell phone and sunglasses and went “Hollywood” on her.

Jiffy went to lunch with Harry and me and climbed around in the library bookstacks. He is concerned with the state of the union and mostly hung out in the economics section where he become interested in a book on economic restructuring. After lunch, he wanted to check out the news so I got him a New York Times, which he happily devoured for an hour or so.

I think Jiffy had a very fulfilling day and seemed to be very happy coming to work with me. He thought the university was very nice and hopes to teach a class here someday on personal finance and the importance of saving money…and baby giraffes.

Tonight I am going to visit the West Street Market and then try to view the photos of Franz Szony at his gallery downtown. I love his style of freakish photography and Photoshopness. It would be great if he could do his version of portraits of all the famous faces in town. This woman above is definitely a wine walker.